Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

591–600 of 769 posts

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#591

Post by knerz »

shivekkhurana wrote: post #54
ribs wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to hear more

Fast fashion forces you to dress for the masses. Loose shirts, baggy pants and shallow pockets is not fashion, its cost optimisation for brands. I didn't want to dress up like a boy. Me and my friend were in Paris when we got inspired by the floor(fashion_sense). I was already working on my clothing, but that day we promised each other that we will not be underdressed anymore. He opted for off-the-shelf formal clothi…

Alternatively, one can create bespoke patterns. There is a lovely little open source community of pattern designers at https://seamly.io I got myself a pattern drafting book and started working on shirts and pants. The neat thing is one can design the draft pieces to be completely parametric, so adapting the pattern to different persons is as simple as entering new measurements.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#592

Post by AdrianB1 »

dr_robert wrote: post #80

I’m a paraglider pilot and powered paraglider recently. Totally recommended, you get to connect with nature in a meaningful way. Also people who practice this kind of sports are nice. From a tech perspective there are a lot of data generated on each flight you can create your own way to capture that data or use already existing apps.

A few days ago I donated all my powered paragliding equipment that I did not use for years. Too many accidents in my circle of friends, I still used to fly planes but not soft wings. If safety would not be a concern, paragliding is indeed very nice, more connected than a glider, fun, not too expensive, but I don't remember any paraglider pilot that I personally know that did not have at least a serious accident.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#593

Post by Folcon »

shivekkhurana wrote: post #587
PotassiumHacker wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you start out? Was it through local classes?

No classes. I was probably hyper aware of how my body reacts to clothing. For example, the waist of almost every pant became uncomfortable when I sat down after eating food. The area below arm pits and close to thighs was always tight. The length of pants was always long for the waist. - To determine my taste, I looked at various styles of women clothing (on Pinterest). Then for the models I found most attractive, I…

I would love to talk to you if you're willing, email in my profile, I'm in SL right now and was thinking of trying something like this but it sounds like you've gone through this journey and are a lot more experienced than me

Would love to get your perspective

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#594

Post by LouDNL »

2 years ago I wanted an easy way to listen to commodore 64 sid tunes on my computer without the need of powering on my c64 everytime but with the benefits of having real sid chips. After doing some research I concluded that the available uab hardware sid boards were either unavailable or outdated. This started my journey to create my own usb board, USBSID-Pico. Currently at version 1.3 of the pcb with an improved version and pro version in development.

The board is supported in various commodore 64 emulators, sid trackers and web players. It also supports midi (still in active development) and even has an onboard embedded emulator.

As far as I know there are now approximately 300+ boards in the hands of enthusiasts. Ranging from users, chiptunes lovers, demo creators to musicians. The board and it's firmware are open source, and the board is available at PCBWay and via my Tindie. Just yesterday I shipped 11 new boards to new owners across the globe.

From personal need to niche hobby supplying fun to other enthusiasts in just 2 years

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#595

Post by phrotoma »

desmondmonster wrote: post #381

I build Tiki Tube Amps - hifi stereos inside carved tiki heads. The tikis are carved from solid logs and hollowed out before I wire up all the circuitry inside. It's all analog vacuum-tube-driven circuits soldered point-to-point. They're really difficult to make but super fun to listen to. When I'm carving I have to plan out how the circuit will be laid out, ensure there's enough space inside for the transformers, co…

Hell yeah this is weird af! I love it <3

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#596

Post by Notatheist »

binarysolo wrote: post #571

Social dancer here -- without hyperbole this was a lifechanging hobby for the better, and while I haven't been able to "meaningfully contribute to" as a criteria, I am a much better person for it. I'm primarily a salsa dancer (~18 years), but spent a few years doing a buncha other dances to get an understanding of the music and movement so I'm pretty much beginner-intermediate in a buncha other dances (equiv of 1-2 y…

I want to put extra emphasis on how technically demanding salsa is and how appealing it can be to autists (and how many of them you'll find at the average social/class). Your body, the music, and the people are all puzzles you could spend lifetimes learning to solve. I think about salsa almost as much as I think about software. How to make a lead work, how to improve my alignment, how to interpret instruments.

Highly recommend.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#597

Post by kashunstva »

hermitcrab wrote: post #245

I make my own hot sauce: https://successfulsoftware.net/2024/08/04/making-your-own-ho... It's quite easy and you don't have to make it super hot. I am currently growing chillis for the next batch.

Growing chillies easily becomes its own rabbit-hole. I grow between 30-40 different varieties, which, depending on where you live, can be an interesting and near year-long venture.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#598

Post by solstice »

DigitalArchivst wrote: post #13

If chess is a solved problem, think about skating to where the puck is going to be, an interest area a bit further away from relatively easier verifiability such as coding, math, and hard sciences. Do you have any interest in digital humanities? Knowledge work where verification is still important but not as black-and-white as does the math check out, does the code run. Do you have any interest in family history or g…

The use of AI assistants in genealogy is interesting. There seems to be a lot of activity in that area

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#599

Post by binarysolo »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #590
binarysolo wrote: post #571

Social dancer here -- without hyperbole this was a lifechanging hobby for the better, and while I haven't been able to "meaningfully contribute to" as a criteria, I am a much better person for it. I'm primarily a salsa dancer (~18 years), but spent a few years doing a buncha other dances to get an understanding of the music and movement so I'm pretty much beginner-intermediate in a buncha other dances (equiv of 1-2 y…

Just curious, after so much salsa, what is your opinion about Argentinian tango? I love it, but it does not seem to be very popular and I wonder why.

Love tango as a dance form... but the scene is limited and not very accessible, which limits its popularity.

As an ex-organizer of the salsa scene, IMHO a scene is defined by its ecosystem of newbies converting into regulars, the regulars improving the dance quality over time, and the oldies aging out due to life, family, and what not. The best enduring dance scenes have good feeder intro classes, a dance that doesn't get stale, and a way to handle dancer attrition. IMHO tango just doesn't quite have the feeders into the regular scene, which may be a lack of intro instructors or a lack of accessibility for new learners of the dance.

(For people picking up dance in 2026, even Salsa's not that accessible now... Bachata and Country Swing are the new gateway dances, though I have plenty of reservations for both which is its own nerdy conversation.)

Part of what settled me into salsa vs other dances where I preferred the connection OR the musicality more was that it had critical mass in terms of dancers of all levels and ages -- which meant that it had dancers I hang out with socially for non-dancing things.

Re: Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?

#600

Post by Notatheist »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #590
binarysolo wrote: post #571

Social dancer here -- without hyperbole this was a lifechanging hobby for the better, and while I haven't been able to "meaningfully contribute to" as a criteria, I am a much better person for it. I'm primarily a salsa dancer (~18 years), but spent a few years doing a buncha other dances to get an understanding of the music and movement so I'm pretty much beginner-intermediate in a buncha other dances (equiv of 1-2 y…

Just curious, after so much salsa, what is your opinion about Argentinian tango? I love it, but it does not seem to be very popular and I wonder why.

The vast majority of latin dance events are social gatherings first, dance events second. Tango doesn't have that draw.
Post reply on HN